Illegitimi Non Carborundum
by Mardy Lass
Summary: Demons, demons, demons. What are you gonna do? Set after episode 3.3, so spoilers for end of season 2 and 3.1 – 3.3. Rated T for mild language and situations.
1. Chapter 1

**ONE**

Sam wrenched the door open and didn't care that it bounced rudely off the wall behind him. Weary, annoyed and ready for some down-time, he ignored the sounds of his equally exhausted brother closing the motel room door behind him as he followed him into the dismally decorated room.

Sam's tired gaze fell on the windowsill and he walked over quickly, peering at it and then wiping his finger across the paintwork.

"There was a demon here, Dean," he said crankily, wiping up the trace of sulphur from the window ledge. He rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully. "Why did it leave?"

"Cos it got hungry?" Dean hazarded flippantly, apparently beyond caring. "Can I just sleep now?"

"Sure, go ahead!" Sam spat, turning and looking at him with a purple kind of rage Dean hadn't seen in his younger sibling since The Great Toy Fire Engine Argument of 1988. "Doesn't it bother you that a demon was here? A _demon_?"

"Woah woah woah," Dean said slowly, tossing his loaded shotgun to the bed and lifting his hands in surrender. "Look, calm down. It's not here now, right? And if it didn't hang around, maybe it's–"

Sam walked up to him smartly and simply punched him in the face.

Dean, understandably not expecting to be physically assaulted by his brother, keeled over backwards with a loud crash.

"Just checking," Sam growled as Dean stared up at him, dumbfounded.

"Checking what?" Dean growled, rubbing his chin, "That I had a bone there once? Well it's caved in now!" He rolled to his feet and advanced on his brother.

Instead of backing away, Sam pulled his jacket off quickly and threw it from him, not caring where it landed. Dean tugged off his jacket too, slinging it vaguely in the direction of the bed, and they eyed each other.

"Winner gets the big bed," Dean breathed.

"Loser gets to ride shotgun for a whole week," he shot back snidely.

"That's cool – cos you ain't never driving ma car!"

"Burns, doesn't it? The thought of someone else driving your car," Sam sneered.

"You ain't–"

"Just think Dean, this time next year when you're _gone_, it'll be _all mine_," Sam breathed evilly.

Dean blinked. The sudden inexplicable fireball of anger in him looked down from its twelve foot diving board into the pit underneath labelled '_Dean's full-blown rage_' and decided that its knees were wobbly. It had very swift second thoughts about flinging itself from the safety of the board and, to put it politely, bottled it.

End result: Dean took a calm step backwards.

Sam's eyed narrowed.

"_Christo_," they both snapped, watching each other.

"Goddamn it!" came a shout from the window.

The brothers forgot about each other and snatched up shotguns and handguns, turning to look at the window ledge that had recently been the displayer of Hell's finest sulphur ash.

Dean spared his brother a glance before he cleared his throat. "_Christo_," he called toward the window.

"Gah! Stop doing that!" came a shout. Two hands appeared over the ledge and then a blonde head followed it. "Can you – just – gah! Little help, guys!" shouted the desperate young man.

Dean and Sam exchanged a look that defied Space and Time in that it managed to express a whole mountain of incredulity, disbelief and plain old _WTF?_ to the power of ten in the space of a nano-second.

Dean walked over slowly, let the shotgun drop, and put his hand out.

"Dean!" Sam protested.

His brother ignored him, and the blonde lad currently clinging to the window ledge as if a three storey drop would kill him attempted to smile.

He let go of the sill with one hand and grabbed at Dean's wrist, and the older Winchester hauled on it. A full minute of struggling and grappling got the man and his torn jeans over the ledge and onto his face on the hotel carpet.

He panted for a few seconds, obviously unused to climbing in windows, and then rolled onto his back. He stared up at the two brothers and the weapons they had pointed at him from above.

"Hey," he managed genially.

"You need to explain why you're crawling over our carpet, and why you don't like the C word," Dean said, eyeing him much the same way a lion appraises a herd of zebras.

The man put his hands up quickly. "Can I get up first?" he asked politely.

"You can try," Sam said nastily, and the man's smile faded slightly. He put his hands out, pushing at the carpet. But he appeared to be glued down.

"What did you–"

"_What am I, an idiot?_" Sam bawled suddenly, and Dean and the man both jumped in surprise. "You think I'd sleep in a room without devil's traps at every entrance?"

The man squirmed and twisted his head back, finding the edges of a tidy scrawl underneath him.

"Ah," he allowed, his face knotting into a really good impression of some bad ham. "So… what do we do now?" he asked politely.

"You're a demon! We exorcise you, job done!" Sam shouted impatiently.

"Hey man, chill," the man smiled.. "Who said I was a demon?"

"_Christo_," the boys snapped as one.

The man flinched and jerked slightly, then let out a long breath in pain. He opened his eyes to reveal they were, as Sam as suspected, bright black orbs.

"Yeah, ok, you got me," he managed as he watched Sam pull the flask of holy water from his back pocket.

"So stay where you are," the young Winchester snapped. He didn't take his eyes off him. "Dean. Book."

"You sure, Sam? You don't want to torture him a little first maybe?" he asked innocently. Sam looked at him. "Joking, man, joking," he admitted, lifting his hands with a smile, turning to find the large book. Sam looked back at the man, but he was staring.

"Sam? Dean?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah. Nice to meet you," Dean called from the opposite side of the room.

"Shit," the man snapped, lifting his hands and putting them to his forehead, closing his eyes and huffing. "No no no no no no – this just isn't fair!" he wailed.

"What isn't?" Sam asked cautiously.

"They said I could possess and kill whoever I wanted! They said I could play for eternity! This ain't fair! I can't be running into you two on my very first possession! Come on!" he shouted, anguished.

Dean wandered over with the book slowly.

"You know us?"

"Know you? Who down _there_ doesn't know you? You kill a YED, you get noticed, know what I mean?" he scoffed. "And you – you were so easy to play, man!" he laughed, pointing at Dean. "Hey, look at me, my brainless brother's dead so I'll do the noble thing and swap me for him – _idiot_!" he laughed.

Sam's lips thinned and he swallowed, straightening his back and slipping the safety on his gun, letting it drop slowly.

"Just send him home," he growled.

"Naw, wait a minute," Dean said, interested.

"Hang on – don't start on me, Dean," the man said quickly. "I mean, I can't do anything about this deal, I just thought I'd get in a little harmless emotional torture before the inevitable," he rattled off quickly.

"Really?" Dean asked with a sly smile, snatching the flask from Sam's hand and unscrewing the lid quickly. "Harmless emotional torture?" he smiled, splashing the water over the man's front.

"_Aaaaargh!_ You son of a bitch!" he shouted in pain, writhing on the floor.

"What?" Dean asked, his face a perfect imitation of a five year old caught with his hand in the cookie jar, yet absolutely convinced his next five seconds of acting could get him off the hook anyway. He splashed a little more over him.

"You – you bastard!" the man yelled in agony.

"Dean, come on," Sam said quickly. Dean just looked at him, wrapped in an impenetrable bubble of refusal to care.

"Whatever," he said, sniffing and putting the cap back on. He tucked the flask in his back pocket and opened the book slowly, leafing to the right page. "Although you do realise that just for that comment about ma brother, I am finding every last one of you pathetic excuses for devil-spawn and sending you home," he added mildly.

"Yeah? I hope you do, I really do," the man spat angrily. Dean looked at him. "Yeah! I do! And do you know why?" he demanded.

"Let me guess, you got that whole Jerry Maguire thing going on where you can't be alone?" Dean asked politely.

"Wow you're a dumbass!" the man laughed, his voice tripping with sarcasm. "No Dean, it's cos the more of us there are down there, the more of us there are to meet and greet you when you arrive in about… ooh, eleven and a half months' time?" he grinned.

He was rather upset to note that this barb didn't make Dean flinch, or blanche, or even blink.

"Oh I know that," he said easily, then smiled at him serenely. "Why do you think I'm getting torture time in now, while I still can? Got to make sure it's worth all the fun after I die, after all. I'd hate to be in eternal torment just cos a bunch of chicks complained about me leaving the toilet seat up." He looked down at the page again, hearing Sam clear his throat. "Don't even think about it, Sammy," he added mildly.

"But what if–"

Dean ignored him, simply clearing his throat and beginning to read the Latin instructions with a certain amount of sunshine in his voice.

-------------------------------------------------

Sam came out of the bathroom, freshly showered, now in just a pair of jeans. He went to the drawers by his bed, looking through them for clean clothes.

"Dean," he called, noticing his brother was still dozing. "Dean! Get your ass out of bed!" he called, amused.

Dean stirred and opened an eye, assessing the room before yawning and putting his elbows under him, looking around. He noticed switching to both eyes did nothing to improve the situation.

"Don't think I'll get up today," he sniffed, sitting up slowly to drag his hands through his hair.

"Why not?" Sam asked, pulling a clean t-shirt from the drawer and closing it.

"This room is missing something…" Dean mused, putting his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands.

"It's your turn to get coffee, man," Sam said quickly.

"Naw, it's not coffee…"

"Doughnuts?"

"Naw, it's like…"

"A TV?"

"Girls," Dean nodded firmly. "We're short of about… a dozen showgirls."

"Really, Dean – we've been through this. I miss days where you didn't spend every waking moment chasing after a bit of skirt," he tutted.

Dean bandied this thought round his head, his eyes rolling up and to the side as he struggled to come to terms with the concept of thinking about something other than sex. It was a mission impossible and he gave it up as a bad job.

"Can't help it, dude, it _is_ first thing in the morning," he said defensively.

"TMI," Sam said pointedly, turning away and going back into the bathroom.

Dean sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair, then reached forward over the blankets to snatch at the t-shirt still sat there from the night before. He pulled it on over his head carelessly, pulling back the blanket, ready to get up.

He heard a scrabbling, snorting sound and hesitated. He looked over at the window to the left of the room.

"Sam," he called hesitantly.

"Yeah?" Sam called back, a toothbrush in his mouth. The scrabbling and huffing got louder and Dean jumped out of bed.

"Sam!" he called. "There's another one!"

Sam spat and rinsed in double-quick time, running from the bathroom and snatching up the now re-filled and re-affirmed flask of holy water. He tossed it to Dean and went to his bed, plunging his hand under the pillow and pulling out another flask.

The two brothers stared at the windowsill.

Two hands stretched abruptly over the woodwork.

"You left the window open?" Sam accused him.

"Me? You were at it last," Dean protested.

They watched the two hands and then arms snake over the top and through the window, the occupier of this body much more adept in the ways of entering through windows than the last one had been.

The figure straightened her back, tossing long brown hair over her shoulder and appraising the two boys slowly. She put her long, bony hands on her hips and transferred her weight to her left leg, cocking an eyebrow and smiling.

"So," she said pleasantly, "which one of you two boys is Sam?"


	2. Chapter 2

**TWO**

"He is," Dean said, chucking a thumb at his taller accomplice. Sam looked at him in disgust, Dean noticed. "Hey come on," he protested, "like they're gonna get us mixed up anyway. She's just trying to break the ice," he shrugged.

"You're always right, aren't you Dean?" she asked, her eyes sweeping down him and back up. "Have you just crawled out of bed or are you just plain ol' pleased to see me?"

Sam's shoulders sagged slightly as Dean looked down at himself and then back at her.

"What can I say, I just got up," he shrugged helplessly.

"Couldn't miss _that_, could I?" she mused as Sam shook his head, ashamed. "So how do we do this? I kill the little one and take the big one home to play with?" she asked brightly.

"No," Sam said abruptly. "You get trapped and exorcised, and we carry on finding all the others like you."

"Trapped? Me?" she asked.

"Could you say something that's _not_ a question?" Dean asked suddenly, folding his arms.

"Why, does it annoy you?" she grinned.

"So you can't," Dean nodded, turning and walking to the chest of drawers next to his bed.

"Where are you going? Is a real live demon not enough to keep your attention?" she called.

"Sorry, no. I'm sure Sam can take care of this one. I'm going to do something worthy of my complete attention: find some pants," he said with a definite air of malicious boredom.

"Really? How is little Sam here going to take care of me?" she asked.

"He ain't so little," Dean said, taking out a pair of jeans and a heavy item from the drawers and walking back over. He handed the large book to his brother. "And anyway, I did the last one."

She looked up quickly, spotted the devil's trap on the ceiling, and cursed fluidly and at length. Dean turned and looked at her.

"Is that Demon for '_I would have got away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids_'?" he asked easily, nodding to Sam and walking off.

Sam opened the book and started to read.

-------------------------------------------------

Dean opened the door and manhandled the six-pack and brown paper bags from _Burger King_ in with him. He closed the door with his foot, the Curly-Wurly clamped between his teeth starting to slip. He crossed the room quickly, depositing the beer and bags on the table under the mirror, manoeuvring the chocolate coated stick of caramel round his mouth with his tongue. He managed to stop it popping out of his mouth Pez-style and let himself feel immensely pleased about it.

Sam looked up, stretched out on the bed like it was the only flat surface he'd ever seen. He closed the laptop in front of him smartly and looked at his brother.

"So how did– Do you _have_ to do that?" he demanded, unable to stop watching Dean shunt the Curly-Wurly round his mouth using just his tongue. The white wrappered end stuck out at odd angles, Macarena-ing its way from one side of his mouth to the other.

"What – _aaargh!_" he cried in dismay as the chocolate plummeted to the hairy carpet. "Noooooo! Goddamn it, Sam!" he wailed angrily, staring at it.

"It's like watching a dog eat a grape," Sam tutted heavily in revulsion, shaking his head and looking away.

Dean just stared open-mouthed at the fallen chocolate. Sam looked back at him.

"What is it now?" Sam sighed, pushing himself to sit up. Dean tore his eyes away from the mess on the floor and looked at Sam, and he was struck by the vulnerability and anguish on his older brother's face. "What, Dean?" he asked, surprised and more than a little alarmed.

"It fell," he pointed out, and for a heartbeat Sam actually believed he was about to witness real man-tears. "It fell!" he reiterated, as if Sam's carefully constructed expression of sympathy were not for him after all. "Thirty-three minutes and fifty-eight seconds, and it fell!"

Sam got up slowly, fear prickling up his back as he realised there were very, _very_ real unshed man-tears burning in his brother's eyes.

"And…?" he prompted gingerly. He waited till Dean was again staring at the lost chocolate in agony before he let his own eyes sweep round the room, wondering what could have happened in the intervening forty-five minutes his brother had been outside by himself.

"And another… another two minutes and fifteen seconds and it would have been a record!" Dean sniffed, his voice weak, and Sam looked back at him sharply.

"I can't believe you're thinking of blubbing over a candy bar," he said harshly, and Dean looked up at him. Sam met his feeble gaze easily, again shocked at the lack of fight in his brother's demeanour.

"It's not about a goddamn candy bar, Sam!" he protested. "It's about setting a record before I run out of time!" He sniffed and hated himself for it. "It's about knowing I've got to leave all this stuff behind and it's never going to get done without me around to do it!"

"Alright, calm down," Sam said soothingly. "Considering I'm not letting you go down anyway, there's no need to get all upset about a candy bar," he added gently. "Ok?"

Dean turned away from him deliberately, giving a pre-emptive sniff before crouching down to put his hands to the stricken bar.

"Leave it," Sam said quietly. "I'll get it. You open the beer."

Dean just stared at the bar for a long moment. Then, looking much more like himself again, he straightened and walked past his brother without so much as a flicker of his eyes, walking into the bathroom and washing his hands with an inordinate amount of soap.

Sam just watched him, standing there with his hands in the sink, taps going full-blast, the mountain of soap bubbles deciding they'd had enough of being trapped in the confines of their porcelain world and wanted more. They wanted excitement, freedom, far away lands. They made a group effort to band together and hurl themselves over the edge to victory.

What they got was rinsed off Dean's hands and swept down the plughole. Even worse, he didn't even notice their failed attempt at independence as he stared at his own eyes in the mirror, determined to make sure he would _never_ nearly go to pieces over a chocolate bar again.

Sam lifted the sticky offender from the carpet and dropped it in the bathroom bin as Dean dried his hands on the fluffy white towel hanging from the shiny ring in the wall.

"All done," Sam said reassuringly. Dean just looked at him with a face that implied he had already forgotten about anything embarrassing that may or may not have just happened. Sam let his eyebrows raise in judgement, watching Dean go to the beers on the table and wrench the tops off two of them with his ring.

He held one out to Sam and they looked at each other.

"Come on, this is as close as I get to saying thanks," Dean managed, and Sam smiled at last. He took the beer and opened his mouth.

But he heard an all-too-familiar scrabbling sound from his left. The two brothers looked at each other, stunned, then turned slowly to look over at the window.

"Another one?" Dean managed in confusion.

"Sounds like it," Sam agreed, turning and running for the flasks of holy water and the book. "Are you doing the honours this time, or am I?"

"My turn, I guess," Dean shrugged, chugging down half the bottle of _Miller Lite _before setting it down with a satisfied huff. He slapped his hands together, rubbing them briskly and taking the book from Sam.

They walked to the window, waiting impatiently for the thing to climb over the sill.

"We really oughtta find out why they're picking this one window," Dean said conversationally from the side of his mouth, and Sam grunted.

"Yeah. After this one."

"What do you reckon?" Dean asked quietly, eyes on the claws grappling at the ledge. "Another dumbass? The other two weren't exactly tough assignments."

"Good point. You reckon we're stuck under a '_noobs, arrogant jerks and second-rate demons here_' sign?" he reasoned.

"Noobs?" Dean asked. "Sounds kinda kinky."

"It means '_new people'_. Honestly," Sam tutted, rolling his eyes as Dean chuckled to himself. Sam couldn't help but smile and a moment of long-missed mutual amusement flashed between the two of them, glad of the chance to flourish its wings and touch both brothers at once. Then it was gone as the talons hauled the grey mass of tattered flesh and rags over the sill.

The lump of moving creature tumbled onto the carpet, hissing and spitting at the markings underneath its clawed hands that were once human. It spat moisture and attempted to break an edge of a triangle, but it refused to be smudged.

Dean chuckled again and Sam looked at him.

"I was meaning to ask, what _did_ you use to draw that?" he inquired conversationally.

"Magic Markers. Had a certain poetry to it," he admitted. "Hey no, that _would_ be a limerick," he added brightly. He took a deep breath. "Let me think now… '_Some demons picked a window through luck, Crawled through and made the carpet all rucked. They saw the two Hunters, Knew they'd be punted, 'n said "Winchesters, dude! We're fu–_'!"

"Dean, can this wait?" Sam interrupted. "This is not the usual demon. Look at him."

Dean closed his mouth, his eyes sweeping from side to side in his slight disappointment that his brother did not fully appreciate his ability to make up random poems on the spot. He looked over at the creature, currently drawing itself up to its full height with a determination that would have put Dean out on a beer-binge to shame.

"Dude," he managed as they stared at it.

Roughly eight feet tall and made of sinew, bone and rotting strips of flesh, the two brothers could not take their eyes from the revolting, stinking figure in front of them. It shivered all over, before finding them in its sights and raising a single figure in slow motion. It pointed at the elder brother with definite connotations of doom.

"邊個係啊 Dean?" it demanded in a rasping, creeping voice.

The two brothers looked at each other, then back at the demon's black ocular marbles.

"Uh… come again?" Dean asked slowly. The demon looked confused.

"你地唔識中文咩? 敗喇, 我估錯啦," it said abruptly, looking angry. Again the brothers exchanged a furtive glance before Sam cleared his throat.

"D'you think he's speaking Chinese?" he ventured.

"You are shittin' me," Dean said flatly. "Why would he do that?"

"你地講乜? 我只係想知邊個係 Dean," it said clearly.

The Winchesters exchanged a look.

"Just start reading," Sam sighed, past caring. Dean opened the book and rifled through it quickly.

"Right then," he said brightly, clearing his throat. He began to read.

-------------------------------------------------

Sam climbed back in through the window, falling to the carpet and getting his breath back.

"Well?" Dean asked, watching him with his arms folded. Sam twisted round on the carpet, looking up at him and lifting his hand.

"Someone left this," he managed, and Dean looked confused for a whole second.

"What's this?" he asked, walking over and taking the offending article from his younger brother's fingers. He lifted it higher and studied it. "Looks like a dead animal."

"It is. It's got inscriptions on it though," Sam said, getting to his hands and knees and climbing to stand slowly, wiping his shirt clean of the paint and bracken. "Someone's been here before us, summoning demons. With that."

"You mean someone was friggin' lazy enough to use this dead-ass piece of hedgehog-thing to make demons come to_them_?" Dean asked, disgusted.

"Exactly. Once we burn it, we'll stop getting them coming through our window."

Dean whisked it into the bathroom, tossing it into the sink and looking around. Sam was still dusting himself down as Dean doused the stinking corpse with lighter fluid and tossed in a match.

"Burned?" Sam asked, walking over.

"It's on the way," Dean nodded with a satisfied air. Sam smiled, relieved.

"Well aren't we glad that's over," he said on a long sigh.

"Yeah, man. Although there is some kind of sense in making them come to –"

"No," Sam said firmly, pushing at Dean's shoulder. "Don't even think about it. I just want to sleep all afternoon, knowing we won't get any more demons crawling in through windows when we're not looking."

"Alright dude, chill," Dean grinned. "To tell the truth, I could do with a rest from all this. Kinda making me do stupid things, y'know?" he offered lightly, but he made sure his gaze was well and truly averted from anywhere near Sam.

"Yeah," Sam allowed gingerly, then stood aside as Dean walked out of the bathroom and away from the cheerful flames consuming the hedgehog in the sink. He turned on the extractor fan and closed the bathroom door, walking to his bed and sitting heavily. "Although," he said quietly, seeing Dean bouncing on his bed with conviction, "I have to say…"

"What?" Dean asked lightly, putting his hands behind his head and letting himself relax on the bed. "What do you have to say?"

"Well… If it did come to it – which it's not, cos I'm gonna get you out of this – but if it _did_ come to it, and something _should_ happen to you, for whatever reason–"

"Sammy! What?" Dean interrupted, apparently amused.

"Well… If anything should happen to you, I'll set you a new Curly-Wurly record."

It was silent for a long few moments. Then Dean grinned to himself.

"Thanks Sammy," he managed, before he chuckled, "that's a load off." He couldn't help but laugh, and then Sam started laughing at the absurdity too.

They didn't stop laughing.

Until they heard a familiar scrabbling sound from the windowsill.

**THE END**


End file.
